Bowdoin College is the alma mater of Senator George J Mitchell, who chaired the peace talks that produced the 1998 Good Friday/Belfast Agreement.

Bowdoin staff reporter Tom Porter focuses on my account of the peacemaking work of Fr Alec Reid and Fr Gerry Reynolds at Clonard Monastery; as well as the efforts of the group Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland (ECONI).

Porter concludes the article with some of my thoughts on the lessons that can be learned from Northern Ireland in terms of the role religion can play in making peace, which I have reproduced below. And while I by and large stand by my comment that ‘mainstream’ church leaders could have done more to make peace, I would add a caveat here that there was not enough time in my lecture to analyse the contributions that were made by other church leaders and even by some of the denominations themselves. Such could be the subject of many more books!

Does Religion Have a Role in Keeping the Peace? – Excerpt from Bowdoin College ReportThere are some important lessons to be learned from the Northern Ireland experience about conflict resolution, said Ganiel. “One key point is that in situations where religion has played a role in the conflict, it also needs to play a part in the solution. Another key take-away is that you cannot make any progress until you’re prepared to talk to the practitioners of violence.”

These are not lessons that everyone has taken on board, she added. Although the peace has, by and large, held in Northern Ireland, the province remains a deeply segregated society, and the church on both sides of the divide shares some of the blame for this, said Ganiel.

“Religious leaders like those in ECONI and the Clonard Monastery played a crucial role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, but they were outliers. It was left to individuals like Reid, Reynolds, and others, to do what the mainstream church leaders themselves should have been doing. Many say the churches lost legitimacy during the troubles, and they have a point.”

One thought on “Bowdoin Report on How Some (But Only Some) Church Leaders Helped Build Peace in Northern Ireland”

What is the purpose of religion? Is that purpose being fulfilled
in the present day, particularly in a society with a diversity of
religions?

What is the purpose of Christianity? Is that purpose being
fulfilled by Christianity in its present day diversity of often
mutually antagonistic forms and denominations?

What is the purpose of church? Is that purpose being fulfilled in
the present day when people in the same community, if they attend
church at all, attend, or are nominally associated with, a
multiplicity of different churches?
————————————
It appears to me that the purpose of religion is:-

a) to provide some explanation of the mystery of existence.
b) to provide guidance for the mutually beneficial ordering of
society.

exemplified, in Judaism and Christianity, by the Ten Commandments
of Moses being presented on two tablets of stone, the first tablet
covering theology and the second sociology.

Religion may have fulfilled these purposes reasonably well in the
distant past when communities and nations were relatively
isolated, where most people in a community or nation observed the
same religion, and where religion and nationhood were one and the
same.

Today however, traditional religious explanations of the mystery
of existence become less relevant as scientific knowledge
increases, and as society is more and more becoming governed by
the democratic will of the people rather than by rules imposed
under threat of religious damnation.

We can argue forever about theology without coming to any
agreement, but we do need to have agreed rules for the well-being
of society. I think that Jesus realized this and put it in a
nutshell (or was it a mustardseed) when he condensed all the pre-
existent beliefs and rules into two simple and easily understood
precepts:-“Love God, whatever your concept of God might be; and
more importantly and by which you will in actuality be loving God,
love your fellow Man”. Consequently it appears to me that the
purpose of religion, as intended by Jesus rather than as practised
by the institutional Christian churches, is to provide guidance
for the mutually beneficial ordering of society.

If the institutional churches have failed to do this they have proved
own their irrelevance

We should be demanding that Christian church leaders resolve the
ridiculous differences between the Christian denominations (or
should that be abominations?); foster accord with other religions
which, after all, have the same purpose as Christianity; and
promote one all-inclusive community for the mutual benefit of all.

Some way must be found of creating a united community for the
peace and mutual benefit of all. If the Christian churches fail
to become wholeheartedly involved, fail to resolve their doctrinal
differences and fail to disassociate themselves from divisive
political and para-religious factions they will by their presence
continue to hinder the development of a new community spirit and
will inevitably become irrelevant if and when such community
spirit comes to be.

Welcome to Building a Church Without Walls, a website for people who are excited about how Christianity is developing in the 21st Century. I am sociologist at Queen's University Belfast.

This is my personal site. All views are my own and are not representative of Queen's. I also write for the popular NI Politics site Slugger O'Toole.

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"In The Deconstructed Church, two veteran sociologists of religion give us our most extensive, comprehensive, and revealing ethnographic study of the worldwide phenomenon known as the emerging Christian movement ..." - William H. Willimon